May 2008 is proving to be a very good month for advertising. According to Media Focus figures published on Thursday, advertising pressure in Switzerland rose by 8.4% to CHF 411.9 million. Since the beginning of the year, the cumulative increase amounts to 9.6 percent. The key market of consumer electronics/photos/films recorded one of the strongest increases with a rise of 79.7% to 23.1 million francs, according to the communiqué. As in the previous month, flat-screen televisions were heavily advertised. The advertising market for political campaigns even expanded by 148.7%.
Another winner was the beverages sector, which increased by 17.6% to CHF 18.3 million. However, advertising pressure for beer fell by a third. Apparently, in the run-up to a major event such as the European Football Championship, no additional advertising presence is needed to boost consumption, writes Media Focus.

The corporate publishing agency Basel West has developed a new concept for the editorial supplement "Respekt", which is being published with the Euro<26-mitgliedermagazin twen erscheint. die agentur hat beiden ersten respekt-ausgaben zu den themen umwelt und gerechtigkeit realisiert. dazu wurde etwa der ethiker prof. hans ruh zum thema gerechte vermögensverteilung interviewt oder verschiedene jugendinitiativen für mehr solidarität wurden vorgestellt. als weitere sind «körper & geist» «miteinander füreinander» geplant. dasheft erscheint in deutsch, französisch italienisch. euro<26 ist eine freizeitkarte, jugendlichen vergünstigungen ganz europa bietet. zugehörige magazin erreicht rund 300’000 jugendliche zwischen 12 26 jahren informiert über aktuelle angebote schweiz.
Responsible at Euro<26 schweizer jugendkarte ag, bern:
Ursula & Jörg Huggenberger. Idea/coordination: Gedankensprung, Bern. Responsible at Basel West Unternehmenskommunikation AG: Albin Kirchhofer (consulting), Stephan Lichtenhahn (editing), Thomas Aerni (design), Frédéric Giger (photography).

  The Regionaljournal Aargau/Solothurn of Schweizer Radio DRS is to be co-managed. The 47-year-old Christine Ruf Erne will head the editorial team together with the current director, 55-year-old Andreas Capaul. Ruf Erne will take over as co-head of the regional editorial office in Aarau on August 1, as Schweizer Radio DRS announced on Thursday. The Solothurn native has worked for Schweizer Radio DRS in various roles since 1995, most recently as editor in Aarau. Capaul, from Aargau, has headed the "Regi" editorial team since May 2006. The editorial team had already been co-headed by Bea Stalder and Jakob Fuchs for the previous six years.

 Burson-Marsteller Switzerland, with offices in Zurich, Bern and Geneva, is strengthening its consulting and management expertise. Theo Zijdenbos will join the agency's management team on November 1, 2008 and will thus help to shape its strategic development. He will also contribute his many years of experience in the areas of public affairs, campaigning, issue management, lobbying and policy affairs to Burson-Marsteller. Zijdenbos is currently Head of Federal Affairs/Public Affairs at Economiesuisse, the umbrella organization of the Swiss economy, in Bern. In this role, he is responsible for establishing and maintaining contacts with parliament and the administration and drafting policies for Economiesuisse members. He is a long-standing member of the Executive Board of Economiesuisse and its predecessor organization "WF" and headed the association's office in Brussels for several years.

 Bluewin remains the most visited Swiss website according to Net-Metrix audit statistics. In May, the Swisscom subsidiary recorded 42.90 million visits and 3.74 unique clients (individual computers accessing a website). Search.ch, Directories, Scout24, Blick Online and NZZ Online follow in terms of visits. In terms of unique clients, they are Netlog, Blick Online, Search.ch, 20minuten.ch and NZZ Online. The online landscape will see some movement in August when the news network of Tamedia, Espace Media and Basler Zeitung Medien is launched. The three websites Tagesanzeiger.ch, Baz.ch and Espace.ch have a combined total of 1,344,000 unique clients. This puts the Newsnetz ahead of NZZ Online, but behind Blick Online. This means that the online project of the three publishing houses could not yet achieve its goal of being the most visited media site in Switzerland with the May figures. The three media houses formulated this target when announcing the free newspaper News (see
). However, the prominent Newsnetz editorial team will put more content on the three pages than before. The increased offer will probably attract additional users. Top ten websites with advertising in May 2008 according to unique clients:
Bluewin: 3'742'000
Search.ch: 2'508'000
Directories.ch: 1'867'000
Scout24: 1'594'000
Blick Online: 1'391'000
NZZ Online: 1'335'000
20minuten.ch: 1'322'000
Moneyhouse: 1'201'000
MySwitzerland.com: 912,000
Tagesanzeiger.ch: 874,000
Top ten websites with advertising in May 2008 by visits:
Bluewin: 42'906'019
Netlog: 11'890'737
Blick Online: 11'064'748
Search.ch: 9'554'419
20minuten.ch: 8'405'780
NZZ Online: 7'094'706
Directories.ch: 6'529'443
Scout24: 5,797,332
Tagesanzeiger.ch: 5'403'621
PartyGuide.ch: 3'982'809
Top ten websites with advertising in May 2008 by page impressions:
Netlog: 410'641'481
Bluewin: 277'338'868
PartyGuide.ch: 196'182'185
Scout24: 176,008,501
Blick Online: 107'959'623
20minuten.ch: 95'777'160
Homegate.ch: 86'298'551
Search.ch: 57'377'758
Tilllate: 47'926'554
Lautundspitz: 40'761'648

Matthew Katumba and Alex Taiganidis believe the time will soon be ripe for the concept of their high-voltage agency to be distributed via satellite.
When a client wants to work with Hochspannung, they deal directly with the two CDs from briefing to realization to acceptance. "This personal contact sets us apart from other agencies," believe the advertisers at Hochspannung. Although they did not want to put their name to their label, Matthew Katumba and Alex Taiganidis are the two heads of the agency in every job. "Clients know exactly what they're getting because they know us." They consider this "proximity" to be one of the most important basic ideas in their concept. For planned growth, those responsible for high voltage therefore do not simply want to hire more people at their headquarters. The idea of proximity should also be guaranteed in other markets with the model of satellites, each with its own managers. "Why not even abroad?" say the founders of Hochspannung. They see Berlin as a realistic possibility. "The synergies would certainly be interesting."
The fact that Katumba and Taiganidis are always involved in the entire process of their advertising work certainly has something to do with the history of their agency. The two friends started their agency five years ago not only as a team of two and without employees. Even before that, the boys Alex and Matthew had already experienced many activities as a duo. They grew up together as teenagers in Zurich's Kreis 3 and 4 districts and also played in the same rock band. Their first joint business project was a falafel stand on Zurich's lakeside promenade back in 1990. "We wanted to use it to earn money for our vacations in Greece after our apprenticeship," the two remember. The idea worked, and the mobile snack bar was the first of its kind alongside René's ice cream stand, which is still legendary today.
Before he was lured into the world of advertising, Alex Taiganidis completed a commercial apprenticeship. Not just anywhere, but at a private bank. The atmosphere spurred him on to higher things. Taiganidis completed the necessary paperwork to enter university at the Cantonal Matura School for Adults and then studied Japanese Studies and Philosophy. "That probably had something to do with my girlfriend from China at the time," he says. But because Japanese wasn't quite his thing, he followed a call from Matthew Katumba to Metzger Lehner Bricola in 1997 and started there as a junior copywriter. After this entry into advertising, the two moved on to Seiler DDB as a team. When Matthew Katumba was brought to Expo.02 by a headhunter as Creative Director Publications, Taiganidis also moved on to Guye Benker. "This contact came about through the creative school."
When self-employment followed with great excitement, Taiganidis made another attempt at university for a degree in philosophy at the same time. However, as more and more jobs came in, he finally had to give up the double burden.
Matthew Katumba's path into creation began with graffiti. His passion for spraying was later steered in a more structured direction at the Carat advertising agency with an apprenticeship as a graphic designer. Katumba found his first job in advertising through Markus Cavegn at GGK Basel. "I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire," he remembers those days, when creative people could often only sleep "under the table" in the graphic design studio when an important pitch was due. Katumba later moved to the GGK branch in Zurich and also worked as a freelancer for a while. Matthew gained further experience in post-production at Crambambouli, his brother Andrew's film production company. Hochspannung later managed the election campaign for the National Council on his behalf. It was not enough to win a seat. However, the campaign "If more and more Swiss people feel like Negroes, then we finally need a real one in the National Council" made it into Time magazine. There was a little more Swiss communication before that with Metzger Lehner and finally around the Expo, before Hochspannung was founded.
Matthew Katumba said that after the Expo, the orders would come "automatically". In the end, the national exhibition turned out to be a popular success. As Creative Director, Matthew had been able to build up a large network of contacts during this time and also learned how to present projects and ideas to important and often very large committees. However, the good references as CD at the Expo did not bring short-term success in advertising, and so Katumba and Taiganidis had to relearn how to "actively approach customers" as self-employed people. But even then they were convinced: "We have a right to be on the market." - And this has since been confirmed by their customers. "Many inquiries now actually come almost automatically." The agency is currently working on a broad campaign for Tele Züri and Radio 24. An important client at the beginning was Phonak.
Katumba and Taiganidis are still proud of winning a pitch for Finanz und Wirtschaft, where they were able to manage the newspaper with the campaign claim "Ohne geht's nicht" for three years. "This idea shows that Hochspannung has also become strong in the development of strategic messages." A recent pitch win in this sense is the budget for Züri Werk. And if a pitch doesn't work out, "you also have to learn to motivate yourself and your employees in the face of such disappointments".
At the first Christmas dinner during the economic crisis in the advertising industry, the crew from Hochspannung did just that with a bratwurst and a can of beer. At a stand in the freezing cold, the creative minds dreamed of a better future. A few weeks later, 2004 turned out to be "a super year" for the young agency. The duo soon had to give up their sublet in the basement of the Jingle Jungle recording studio and look for larger premises for their work. Today, seven people work at Splügenstrasse 9 near Enge station. Tom Fäh has joined the management team as head consultant. Hochspannung has developed into a full-service agency. The creative groove of a still unconventional start-up is also reflected in the somewhat special architecture of the new office. Where there is high voltage today, there used to be a garage. It is particularly practical in summer that the wall in the meeting room still functions like a large garage door and can be raised when the weather is nice. Now in its fifth year, this still brings a breath of fresh air to the brainstorming sessions at Hochspannung - even though the two bosses are now not only grown-up entrepreneurs but have also become family men.
Andreas Panzeri

 The Association of Freelance Professional Journalists Zurich (FBZ) has launched the first Swiss-German press prize for freelance journalists. The award will be presented in the fall, as the FBZ announced on Wednesday. With this prize, the association aims to promote the reputation and recognition of freelance journalism. The prize is awarded in two categories. The first category honors articles that have already been published and were written on a freelance basis. The second is for unpublished texts. The prizes are endowed with CHF 3,000 and CHF 2,000 respectively. According to the FBZ, the prize money is raised through sponsorship.

 Schweizerische Depeschenagentur AG practically doubled its consolidated profit last year. On balance, the SDA Group earned CHF 2 million. Turnover increased by 2 percent to 36.9 million francs. The parent company, the SDA news agency, posted an annual profit of 1.5 million francs, as announced on Wednesday. Operating income amounted to 27.8 million francs. This is around 3 percent more than in the previous year. The SDA Group also owns Sportinformation (SI). It also holds stakes in News aktuell, which distributes media releases, and the financial news agency AWP (AG für Wirtschaftspublikationen). Last year, the SDA Group also acquired a 40 percent stake in the picture agency Keystone. The remaining 60 percent is held by the Austrian news agency APA.
Return of Ringier Last year, the SDA news agency succeeded in winning Ringier back as a customer after the publishing house had dropped out in 2005. The contract with the Federal Chancellery was also renewed for three years in 2007. On the other hand, the Mittelland Zeitung and the Neue Luzerner Zeitung terminated their contract with SDA.
Hans Heinrich Coninx was confirmed as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the SDA Group's Annual General Meeting in Bern on Wednesday. The other members of the Board of Directors were also elected for a further term of office. The shareholders also increased the previously valid participation limit of a shareholder from 10 percent of the total capital to 20 percent.

 
Distribution Swiss Post recently became the regional monopolist for addressed early delivery in north-western Switzerland. This will have consequences for Zuvo. 
Until recently, publishers who wanted to have their daily newspaper delivered to their subscribers by early delivery were well advised to use Zuvo, the distribution subsidiary of NZZ and Tamedia. Zuvo, which operates in Zurich and eastern Switzerland, was involved in most of the other publishers' early delivery companies in German-speaking Switzerland - either directly or via one of its parent companies. The only "hole" without direct Zuvo influence is in north-western Switzerland. Here there is only a contractually regulated cooperation with Prevag, the early delivery company of Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM). Just over a year ago, Zuvo tried hard to acquire a stake in Prevag, but was rebuffed by BZM, and now BZM is selling its Prevag to Swiss Post of all companies, which since the beginning of the year has been the competition par excellence for Zuvo and the other delivery companies owned by the publishing house in the area of addressed early distribution. This is because Swiss Post, which until then had only been active in addressed early delivery in Berne and central Switzerland, expanded this activity to all German-speaking Swiss agglomerations from March thanks to the Blick contract. However, it is clear that the distribution of Blick alone is not profitable for Swiss Post. It urgently needs more early delivery orders. But in order to win such orders, you need good conditions and staying power - because of the notice periods.
For Zuvo, which had also been interested in the early delivery of Blick, Ringier's contract with Swiss Post was a first defeat. The fact that BZM is now also pulling out and selling its entire early delivery company to Swiss Post is likely to cause Zuvo and its German-speaking Swiss partners to waver. This is because Swiss Post now has access to several orders at once, as Prevag distributes not only the Basler Zeitung (BaZ) but also the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (bz), Tages-Anzeiger, NZZ and other titles in north-western Switzerland. Furthermore, thanks to Prevag, Swiss Post can now extend its area of activity to the whole of WG 31 and even set foot in the Sunday morning delivery area.
But the most important thing: because BZM sold Prevag in its entirety, the Yellow Giant now has a regional monopoly on addressed early delivery for the first time - and in an economically important area to boot. To put it positively: Swiss Post can now lure publishers from WG 31 however it wants. Nowhere else is it so free in the design of its services, because everywhere else partners are still involved. First of all, it will now try to increase the loyalty of those publishers whose titles it currently accepts in WG 31 by offering group or volume discounts and loyalty bonuses. Just as is already the case with press transport rates for daily delivery. In short, BZM has given Swiss Post an instrument with which it can now steal one customer after another from Zuvo.
It started with BaZ. It can be assumed that it made BaZ an interesting offer - not only for distribution in WG 31, but the price is likely to improve if BaZ also withdraws its early delivery circulation in Zurich, Aarau or Lucerne from the Zuvo partners and hands it over to Swiss Post instead. Once this has happened, a domino effect could soon set in: After BaZ, the AZ media will presumably also withdraw from early delivery, then the entire Mittelland Zeitung, then the Zürcher Landzeitung and finally Zuvo and its associates themselves. Why? Because it will be cheaper to hand over the entire print run to Swiss Post rather than just partial print runs. And because after the loss of Blick and the sale of Prevag, Zuvo has practically no profitable opportunities for expansion.
BZM CEO Beat Meyer probably came to a similar conclusion. In any case, he presented his "private assessment" of the situation in the DRS regional journal as follows: "Swiss Post's clear statement and the resources with which it can penetrate the early delivery market will certainly spur one or two publishers to reconsider. And perhaps one or two will come to the same decision as us."
Markus Knöpfli
An unfavorable timeAfter Swiss Post's decision,
After Tamedia had announced that it would "clarify" its relationship with Swiss Post by directly attacking Zuvo with the Blick early delivery service. This primarily concerns the early delivery company Bevo in Berne, in which Tamedia and Swiss Post each hold an equal share. In the worst-case scenario, Tamedia could terminate a large proportion of Bevo's contracts there and transfer them to a parallel organization yet to be founded. But is that worth it? Swiss Post would certainly not back down. Moreover, it is unlikely that Zuvo partner NZZ would get involved in such a power struggle with Swiss Post. Why should it? But Tamedia and Zuvo should have "clarified" the situation by the end of June in order to be able to terminate Bevo's contract at the end of the year. However, they seem somewhat perplexed by the latest developments. According to Tamedia's Chief Logistics Officer Jürg Brauchli, who is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zuvo, nothing has yet been decided regarding Bevo and the relationship with Swiss Post. But there is already a new need for clarification in WG 31. (mk)

 The Swiss professional association Swiss Marketing (SMC) is now playing in the European league: It has been unanimously accepted as a new member by the European Marketing Confederation (EMC). The EMC is the umbrella organization for European associations in the fields of marketing, sales and communication and represents around 250,000 individual members. According to a press release, one of the EMC's main objectives is to harmonize and raise the standards of professional qualifications. It has therefore created an EMQF (European Marketing Qualification Framework) based on the EQF (European Qualification Framework) standard. The membership of Swiss Marketing (SMC) in the EMC now makes it possible for the professional and higher professional examinations co-sponsored by the SMC and the Higher College of Marketing to be compatible with this standard and thus be raised to European level.

 Radio RSR in French-speaking Switzerland has appointed a new director for the Espace 2 channel. On September 1, journalist and music specialist Alexandre Barrelet will take over the management of RSR's second channel. He succeeds Pascal Crittin, who will take up the post of RSR Secretary General at the beginning of December. As the French-speaking Swiss radio station announced on Wednesday, Barrelet has been working at the radio station since 1995. Among other things, he was responsible for the "Matinales" and "Mémoires de la musique" programs.

 The Bern-based agency Contexta has won the confectionery producer Läckerli Huus as a new client as part of a competitive presentation. The Basel-based company, owned by Christoph Blocher's daughter Miriam since January 2007, has commissioned the agency to create and implement its new brand identity. A comprehensive relaunch is intended to make even better use of the potential of the traditional brand, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. The first works will be on display in September.